Bump in the Night.

Mumbai monsoons always gallop me through a never ending memory lane. This morning they cross dissolved me to two years back. No, its not one of those life changing incidents. It just leaves me with a funny feeling, and yes a little moral to behave better next time.

This is a story of my initial days in Mumbai. I had no clue about the City. I had just got a taste of my first salary. My account had quite a few zeroes earned by me, not by my dad, for a change. There were a lot of things on my desire list, like sitting in a aeroplane, buying an iPod, etc. I wanted to treat myself, only MYSELF. I wanted to have the best Bombay could offer to any bachelor earning his own dough. Sorry to disappoint you, but I ran out of imagination and just landed at a movie theatre. It was the cinematic masterpiece, ‘Van Helsing’. I am sure the director was high on LSD, camera man high on methadone, lead actor had a dose of ether and the crew was tripping on Indian bhang, munakka, arrack and some household phenyl. Anyway, that’s beside the point.

The movie finished at twelve in the night, leaving me with a hundred ways to rip it apart. Isn’t it amazing, how good we feel about ourselves after watching a bad movie? Just the way we feel after being patient to a really cranky kid. So, there I was stepping out of ‘Suburbia’, the theater. It was raining outside.

Monsoon shower is best, if you are headed home. You actually don’t mind it. You know you have to go back and change into pajamas only. I strolled a while in the rain, mulling over the CG antics of Van Helsing, waiting for the crowds to disappear. Unfortunately, I forgot that the crowd will disappear along with all the available cabs also. I was stranded.

The pouring hadn’t stopped. Crowd had cleared. The cigarette was over. A cab stopped on the other side of the road. I rushed to catch it.

The downpour was heavy; I was drenched in a matter of seconds. This cab was my last hope and an Indian had again lost to white skin. Anyway, I was standing next to the open cab door, looking at that white girl. She had her one foot outside, I couldn’t figure whether she is getting in our out. “Are you getting in our coming out”, I asked; speaking the slowest English I could. I saw her face in the dim street light. She was pretty cute, and distressed. I was terribly wet, no pun intended.

“He is charging me Rs.240, for the airport, isn’t that too much?” she said. She looked like an archetypal damsel in distress. Rain added to the ambience. I saw myself sitting atop a white horse, with a shinning sword and resembling George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Raj Kapoor, all at the same time. Deep down I also felt like being a good Indian. “Of course, he is trying to fleece you! Let me handle it.” I showed the cabbie my war face and scowled, “tum jaiso ki wajah se hi sab hindustaniyon ki naak katati hai!”. (Because of guys like you, Indians lose respect everywhere). She got her handbag out and together we walked towards another cab which stopped a little ahead.

“Come with me, I will pay for the meter till Dadar and get down there…you can take it further to the airport, it will be much cheaper to you that way”, she agreed. The taxi started trudging towards Dadar. None of us knew that this cab ride will change the way we look at things…

Mariana was from Virginia, she was here on a university exchange program. Apart from the fact that a cab was trying to gyp her, she had a high opinion of Indians. Of course, my effort was the icing on the cake. In a matter of thirty minutes, we learnt a lot about each other.

The cab stopped at my place in Dadar. I stepped out with a two ton halo and a pair of wings, feeling good about myself. “Madam ko safely yahan se airport le jao, aur jyada pareshan mat karna”, I ordered the bhaiya cabbie. Cabbie gave me a smile, I couldn’t decipher it. Anyways, I stood at the gate of my house, waving at Mariana as she left. Oh, so angelic I thought.

I slept like a baby that night. My brain worked overtime though, thinking of various romantic scenarios. I used to be single then, and any female was a prospect of a relationship in those days.

I woke up with the irritating noise of my brother Dhruv brushing his teeth and flipping the Sunday times like a Neanderthal, next to my bed. I was very excited. “Dada, you know what happened last night”, I said, rubbing my eyes. “Whaa happeng?” Dhruv replied through the foam in his mouth. I told him the story expecting a little more nitro for my ego and overall studliness.


“Phwwwwaaaaahaahahhhhh!!!!” Dhruv laughed splattering the whole foam on the paper and some on me! He rushed to the bathroom, washed his mouth and came back laughing even loudly. I looked at him, something seriously wrong had happened last night. There was no reaction choice for such an occasion, in my manual.

“DO YOU EVEN HAVE A F**KING CLUE ABOUT WHAT YOU DID LAST NIGHT!” he said, after some five minutes of rolling on floor and laughing. “THAT POOR CHICK WOULD HAVE SHELVED OUT SOME RS.500, THANKS TO YOUR GOOD SAMARITAN DETOUR! IF SHE WAS PAYING RS.240 EARLIER, WHICH ACTUALLY IS THE RIGHT AMOUNT FROM BANDRA TO AIRPORT, SHE WOULD HAVE PAYED DOUBLE THE AMOUNT FOR A DADAR TO AIRPORT CAB, WAH! DUBEY JI! WAH”

Mariana’s email address in my pocket suddenly seemed like an unredeemable sin. Like I said, I had no clue about the city. I had never seen an airport or a plane in my life till then. That day I learnt the most about Mumbai. It is a linear city and Bandra lies midway between Dadar and Santacruz.

I really don’t want to think about her image of Indians. I laughed as well as lambasted myself that day.

I still try to be a good Indian hoping that one day, I will again be caught in a monsoon with a white girl in distress, this time I will do better. That will be my redemption, for the ‘bump in the night’ I gave Mariana.

May God bless her.